


The Laundromat Affair

by manic_intent



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M, Prompt: The Laundromat Affair, That postcanon fic where Napoleon is bored one day in New York, Very light R, and decides to stick his nose into other people's business, and spies Illya walking on the street
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York was having a swelteringly hot and humid summer. Napoleon had tried to beg leave from Waverly to escape northwards, maybe as far as Canada, but it had been vetoed - apparently, a mission was imminent. </p><p>Bored, Napoleon spent his days driving around aimlessly in the morning in his Bentley and sleeping off the rest of the day in his air-conditioned penthouse, and so had been cruising down Brighton Beach, wondering whether he had the energy to park somewhere and walk down the shorefront, when he saw a familiar, tall blonde figure duck into a shop. Surprised, Napoleon slowed down. It <i>was</i> Illya: that height and cap were unmistakable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Laundromat Affair

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [История с прачечной (The Laundromat Affair)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394706) by [Molly_Malone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Malone/pseuds/Molly_Malone)



> Prompt: for grantrogerrs, The Laundromat Affair, Napollya. I guess this is sort of kinda in a prequel to From Geneva With Love. 3/5 of the Grand Final Weekend prompts.

I.

New York was having a swelteringly hot and humid summer. Napoleon had tried to beg leave from Waverly to escape northwards, maybe as far as Canada, but it had been vetoed - apparently, a mission was imminent.

Bored, Napoleon spent his days driving around aimlessly in the morning in his Bentley and sleeping off the rest of the day in his air-conditioned penthouse, and so had been cruising down Brighton Beach, wondering whether he had the energy to park somewhere and walk down the shorefront, when he saw a familiar, tall blonde figure duck into a shop. Surprised, Napoleon slowed down. It _was_ Illya: that height and cap were unmistakable.

The shop was a laundromat, a small version of its breed, with just the word ‘Laundromat’ set in large blocky white letters over the entirety of its modest shopfront and the words ‘Coin operated 24 hours’ sign-painted onto the glass frontage. It was a narrow shop, sandwiched between a closed Yiddish restaurant and a sprawling long hotdogs shop that was attracting brisk business from beachgoers on their way to the shorefront, all young men and women in increasingly skimpy beachwear.

If Napoleon hadn’t been this bored, he would had grinned to himself and driven off, and maybe dropped a playful comment or other about laundry the next time Illya materialised at U.N.C.L.E. HQ for a mission. Right now, however, Napoleon was curious enough to quietly park his car a block down, across the road, and then he got out and loitered around, watching the laundromat. Above him, raised over the road on hundreds of steel feet, the snaking coil of the train tracks shuddered and snarled as a train rattled past.

Napoleon didn’t have long to wait. Illya came out of the shop - no laundry bags - and started to walk away briskly, threading through the crowd that had thickened outside the hotdog shop. He was dressed in a light shirt that bared his arms, but other than that had made no other concession for the heat or humidity, still in familiar dark trousers and that woollen cap. It made him easy to track at least, even across the street and with the summer beach crowd. But all Illya did was head up one of the stairways to the train tracks, and Napoleon watched him climb briskly out of sight, increasingly curious. 

He waited until a train came and went, then Napoleon crossed the street, dodging cars. It was his turn to weave through the hotdog crowd, then he was standing outside the laundromat, hands in his pockets. It looked like any laundromat that he had seen, albeit a small one, just one of hundreds upon thousands that sat ubiquitously on just about every street corner in an American city. Rows upon rows of white washing machines sat within, and there was a central bench where Napoleon could see people, mostly women, waiting patiently for their washing, some chatting, some reading a book. 

Napoleon hesitated for a long moment, then he went inside. The heat was far worse in the laundromat, stiflingly so, scented with washing powder and starch, and there was a constant thrumming roar of machines churning. Some of the women looked up at him, curious at first, then with admiring smiles, but Napoleon merely nodded politely at them and strode through, looking as purposeful as he could. When in an unfamiliar place, it usually paid to look as though he was there on business.

There was a small office with a cloudy glass window at the far end of the laundromat. Napoleon didn’t go near it, instead pretending to look at some of the machines. They were old: the one he stood close to was even making alarming, rattling sounds, and Napoleon wondered what Illya had been doing in here. He hadn’t come in with laundry and he hadn’t left with laundry. The office perhaps-

“Can I help you?” 

Napoleon turned. The lady beside him was an old woman, bent from age, her creased face a morass of seamed wrinkles. Her eyes were intelligent and gray, and her smile was friendly, but not too friendly. She was dressed in a dowdy, faded gray frock and sensible shoes, her hair a wispy mop over her head combed back over her neck. She had spoken with a thick Russian accent, and _now_ Napoleon was most definitely curious.

“I thought I saw a friend of mine come in here, but perhaps I was mistaken,” Napoleon told her, with as charming a smile as he could. “Tall, blonde-“ 

“Ah, Illya?” The old woman visibly brightened up. “A friend?” 

“For some time,” Napoleon told her, this time in Russian, and she grinned at him, pleased. “We work together.” 

“Ah-h. He is a good boy and a kind one. A very nice young man.” The old woman’s Russian had an Ukrainian accent to it.

“That he is,” Napoleon lied, with a carefully straight face. Was this a relative of some sort? Napoleon couldn’t tell: there was nothing in the old woman’s face that reminded him of Illya. Was Illya from Ukraine? His Russian was definitely a Muscovite’s. “Pleased to meet a mutual friend.” He offered his hand. “I’m Napoleon.”

“Like the general?” The old woman grinned. 

“Only sometimes,” Napoleon winked, and she laughed. 

“I am Anna.” She shook his hand, her palm a wrinkled paw, rough with poor use. “Illya checks in on us now and then. Would you like a coffee?” 

“If it wouldn’t be any trouble.” This got Napoleon into the back office, which turned out not to be an office at all, but a narrow stairway up into a cramped living space: kitchen, living quarters and rooms closed off that Napoleon assumed were probably a bathroom and a bedroom. There was another old woman on the couch, listening to the radio, which was turned low and tuned to jazz. She looked up as they approached and smiled, though her eyes were cloudy and unfocused: she was blind. 

“Sofya,” Anna called for her, “We have a guest. This is a friend of Illya’s. Napoleon.”

“Ah-h-h. Welcome, welcome.” Sofya sounded as though she was from Moscow. She had once been extraordinarily beautiful, Napoleon guessed: Sofya was willowy still, and tall, and her pale blonde hair had not faded entirely to white. There were traces of her once exquisite beauty in the imperious slant of her jaw and the arch of her neck, and in the grace of her hands as she raised one into the air for Napoleon to shake. He kissed her knuckles instead, playfully, in a flourish, and as Anna chuckled, Sofya smiled, gentle and aristocratic. 

“My roommate,” Anna said, though that was not quite the truth: Napoleon could see the gentle, loving care with which Anna rearranged the shawl over Sofya’s shoulders. “Coffee for everyone?” 

“Please,” Sofya nodded.

“Let me help,” Napoleon suggested, and insisted on helping despite Anna’s attempts to shoo him off. They had coffee around the battered small table, before the tiny black and white television, shut off, the radio purring with smooth sax over drums and bass. 

“John Coltrane,” Sofya said, her face creasing with pleasure. “Do you listen to jazz, Napoleon?”

“When I can. But I can’t say that I’m much of an aficionado.” 

This seemed to be both the right and wrong thing to say: Sofya’s brow furrowed, very slightly, and then she spent the next half an hour talking about jazz, while Anna nodded occasionally and sometimes murmured agreement. Napoleon learned that jazz was starting to decline in popularity, what with ‘the Beatles’ and their meteoric rise (“Rock music? Pah”), with clubs starting to close down. He learned about Latin jazz and fusion and everything save why Illya was visiting these two women regularly. Was he related to Sofya? That seemed slightly more possible. But the conversation had gotten away from Napoleon and he had almost finished his coffee. Steering it back to Illya seemed unforgivably rude.

Then a tinkling bell summoned Anna back downstairs, and once she went, Sofya reached for Napoleon, and he grasped her hand, starting to shake it, thinking that he was about to be dismissed. Instead, she turned his palm over, pressing her fingertips thoughtfully to the gun calluses on his skin. 

“CIA?” Sofya asked finally, quietly, and the friendliness in her voice was gone. 

Napoleon blinked at her, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

Sofya stared in Napoleon’s direction, defiantly. “Once I also played the Game. I know your kind, even without my eyes. Illya is KGB, no? He would not say. I did not think that Moscow would still care. It has been a long time since I had to retire.” 

“Technically. Ah. You could say he’s… retired. So am I.” 

Sofya shook her head. “You do not retire from the KGB.” She smiled bitterly. “Even when you are blind and old, it seems. The past will always come back. What does he want?”

“I think,” Napoleon said, now mystified, “That you probably should start from the beginning.”

“We were being harassed by street gangs. There used to be many around here who did not care very much about us - the laundromat is just a small business. But there was a new one in town. They are younger, more hungry. They asked us for protection money.” Sofya barked out another bitter laugh. “Had I but my eyes, and were I ten years younger! But now what could we do but pay. Anna was frightened and we are old.” 

Napoleon frowned, but before he could ask for more information, Sofya added, “One day they were harassing Anna. Threatening to break the windows, destroy the machines, do worse. It was late in the evening, the hot dog shop was closed. The street was empty. But then Illya arrived out of nowhere. He routed them and promised that we would be left in peace. And so it has been.”

“When was that?”

“Four months now. He checks in… sometimes twice a week. Sometimes nothing. But the gangs leave us alone. Why is the CIA suddenly interested?” 

Try as Napoleon might, he could not budge Sofya from her conviction that he was here on some sort of official business. In the end he had to leave, thanking her for the coffee and shaking hands again with Anna on the ground floor, and outside, Napoleon breathed out, feeling slightly ashamed of himself. He hadn’t meant to upset anyone, let alone an old woman. Even if she was apparently ex-KGB. Or NKGB, perhaps.

Over the next week, Napoleon cruised past Brighton Beach now and then, but didn’t head back into the laundromat. He spotted Illya once more, again visiting at around the same time as before, and then they were swept off on a mission to Mombasa, and Napoleon forgot all about it.

II.

Napoleon let out a grateful sigh at the airport as he saw his Bentley already parked on the tarmac. Gaby giggled as she headed down towards her own black Citroën. “Mombasa was not that bad,” she told him.

“You’re not the one who nearly got blown up with a rocket launcher.” Napoleon told her testily. At least New York seemed to be noticeably cooler now, and not as humid. “ _Or_ had a crazed psychopath decide to play noughts and crosses with a scalpel on your back.”

“What doesn’t kill you…” Gaby trailed off, and giggled again at Napoleon’s expression. “See you next time.” 

“I quit,” Napoleon told her archly, just to make her laugh, and she got into her car, driving away, then turning out of sight.

“Getting caught by madman was your fault,” Illya said quietly behind him, and Napoleon nearly jumped. Illya had a bad habit of going absolutely quiet and unobtrusive whenever he wasn’t interested in the conversation, and sometimes Napoleon forgot that he was there. It was an impressive trick. 

“Well yes, I acknowledge that. Thanks for the rescue again, by the way.”

“Try not to make it habit. Very annoying having to bail partner out of problems all the time.” Illya was expressionless, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. 

“So uh. Until the next time?” Napoleon prompted. Illya had been in an odd mood since extricating Napoleon from the hands of a knife-happy surgeon-turned-criminal-mastermind, and Napoleon couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong. 

“I want to see your apartment.”

Napoleon blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“Was not difficult question.” 

“Was it a question?”

Illya sighed. “Yes, or no?” he drawled, as though talking to a slow child, and Napoleon set his jaw, tamping down on a faint spark of irritation. 

“Fine. Come along then.” 

They loaded their bags into the Bentley, and Napoleon drove, Illya slouched in the front passenger seat, sullen. When they rolled out of the airport, Illya said quietly, “You went to see Sofya and Anna.”

“Yes.” When Illya didn’t respond, Napoleon added cautiously, “I’m sorry if I scared them.”

“Did you?”

“I don’t know. I hope not, I didn’t mean to. Sofya thought that I was from the CIA. I think _you_ scare her, by the way.”

Illya snorted. “She is not a woman who is easily scared.” 

“Anna doesn’t seem to know who you are.”

“Anna does not know what _Sofya_ was. She met Sofya in jazz club in Odessa. Anna was waitress. Sofya was singer. Undercover, of course, but Anna did not know that either. Later, after Sofya’s… injury… they left together. Somehow they made it to New York. Moscow must have cut a deal. Or maybe Sofya is very resourceful.”

“Amicable parting?”

“She was blinded in line of duty. We are not monsters.” Illya paused. “Not always. Though I am surprised that she left. She could have had comfortable life in Moscow.” 

“Surely Anna makes that ‘comfortable life’ complicated,” Napoleon said delicately. 

“Things are not simple for them here either,” Illya said shortly. “But whatever the reason, they have been here for a while. They are happy.” 

“Maybe they had other reasons to leave.” Napoleon tried to imagine what could have happened. To be injured in the line of duty, Sofya had to have been in the KGB perhaps at least twenty years ago - back when it wasn’t even _called_ the KGB. The time of Stalin and his Great Purge. The World War. 

“Maybe,” Illya agreed curtly. “Did you bug their place?”

“No?” Napoleon blinked. “What… why would I?” 

“Good.” 

“Did you think that I would? They seemed harmless to me.”

Illya shrugged. “If you had, I would have broken your fingers.” 

“You know,” Napoleon said, blinking, as he turned a corner, “This is possibly why you scare Sofya. Although Anna tells me that you’re ‘nice’ and ‘kind’.” 

“I can be nice.” Illya, however, smiled thinly. “And I told you. I don’t scare Sofya. We talk about jazz. Sometimes she asks me for news on Russia. Perhaps she is more reserved than Anna. But that is our way.” 

“She thinks that you were sent by the KGB to check in on her.”

“I know.” Illya paused for a moment, as though embarrassed. “I gave her that impression. It was luck that I was there to help them. They are on the way to shorefront from train. I was passing by.”

“Why’d you make her think that the KGB were back?” 

Illya looked out of the window, at the tall buildings that they were passing, through the throngs of busy people and snarled traffic, and finally, as they eventually struggled closer to Central Park, he said quietly, “It is a hard thing, to be abandoned.” 

Anna was right after all. Illya _was_ kind. Napoleon had seen it with Gaby, though he had dismissed it as a byproduct of sexual attraction - something that seemed to have petered off nowhere - but he couldn’t quite dismiss this the same way. The KGB may have cored Illya down, fed his black temper and turned him into a killer, but this perhaps was a part of who Illya had once been, before his life had been burned away and remade. Somehow, he had kept it close.

Illya walked right past Napoleon when Napoleon turned the lights on in his penthouse apartment. He dropped his bag unceremoniously on one of the armchairs, then looked at the wide glass windows that opened up the penthouse to Central Park. Napoleon hesitated at the door, then locked it and trundled his suitcase to a side. “Interested in a drink?”

“No,” Illya said shortly. 

Illya glanced around the apartment, slowly, taking in the elegant leather and steel furniture, the Persian rug, the framed art prints - Napoleon had stored the paintings that the CIA hadn’t confiscated elsewhere, out of the country. Illya circled the rooms, occasionally peering into some and switching the lights on for a moment before switching them back off, and Napoleon stared at him for a moment before he shrugged and poured himself a scotch, settling down on the couch before the view of the park. After all, if Illya wasn’t yet ready to leave, it wasn’t as though Napoleon was in any way equipped to make him. 

Eventually, when Napoleon had finished his scotch, Illya reappeared, sitting down on the couch. “I want to see your back.” 

Napoleon hesitated. He was in no mood to be coddled, and he was tired: all he really wanted to do was drink another glass of scotch, shower and go to bed. “I’m fine, Peril.” 

Illya frowned at him, for a long moment, and just as Napoleon was about to repeat himself, Illya said, gruffly, “Please.” 

Surprised, Napoleon could only stare blankly, then he understood, all of a sudden. _It is a hard thing, to be abandoned_. Like Sofya, Illya had been abandoned. He was alone in New York, cut away from the KGB, living in a city that he did not know, which he had once thought of as enemy territory. Perhaps he knew no one here, or anywhere. Only two old women who owned a laundromat, Gaby, and Napoleon. 

“The first aid kit is in the bathroom,” Napoleon said at last, and Illya nodded, getting up from the couch. Napoleon had stripped down to just his trousers and socks by the time Illya returned, the rest of his clothes folded on the coffee table or draped over the armchair, and Napoleon turned his back to Illya as Illya set the kit down beside the folded clothes. 

Illya’s touch was cold on his back, and Napoleon nearly flinched. “It is not too bad,” Illya said quietly, removing the bandages and the compress. “Stitches have held. Few weeks and you will just have some strange scars.”

“Pleased to hear it.” 

“Probably have to get stitches changed tomorrow.” 

“I know,” Napoleon said glumly. He hated getting stitched up. “You did a neat job.” 

“Shouldn’t have had to.” Illya muttered. He was daubing alcohol onto a clean cloth. “I should have noticed the substation earlier. Strange placement. This did not need to happen.”

“I got off lightly. Besides, better me than Gaby.” 

Illya said nothing, redressing Napoleon’s wounds efficiently, then finally heading off to dispose of the old bandages and replace the kit in the bathroom. When he returned, instead of getting his things and leaving, he sat down on the couch again. Napoleon didn’t move, confused again. This wasn’t even the first time that Napoleon had gotten hurt in a mission. Nor would it be the last. Was Illya guilty? Or-

“I should go,” Illya muttered, though he didn’t look at Napoleon.

“You don’t have to.” 

Illya glowered at Napoleon, and yes, there it was, that particular breed of frustration, hidden away all along. “This is not… good idea,” Illya said finally. 

“Nobody should be alone,” Napoleon whispered, leaning in, and Illya tipped away at first, a fraction, but then his breathing hitched to a stop and he pressed forward, their lips meeting, soft and chaste at first until Napoleon struggled to get to his knees and Illya tugged him carefully onto his lap. 

“You are going to ruin my stitches,” Illya told him, between kisses, Napoleon balanced on his thigh. 

“I don’t care.” 

“ _I_ care,” Illya grumbled, but he let Napoleon kiss him until they were both breathless, until they were grinding against each other, slowly, their bodies flush and entwined, with no other cares in the world. 

It was Napoleon who first tentatively tried to get their trousers open, but then Illya helped, and then spit slicked the way, Illya’s head bent back against the couch, chin up, lips parted, Napoleon’s mouth breathing gasps against his neck, his hand working between them both, pain meshed intricately with pleasure. Ecstasy was a bright pulse of inevitability that was over too quickly, but it was good to lean against Illya as he caught his breath, a privilege to see Illya like this, his handsome face slack with pleasure, lip caught in his teeth. 

Illya murmured some excuse but allowed Napoleon to drag him into the large shower, then they went to bed, sleepy and damp, not bothering to dress. Napoleon knew that Illya would be gone in the morning. But he could see the start of the long game now, and how to play it, and Napoleon always played for keeps.

III.

“How’s everything so far?” Napoleon asked during the intermission.

Across, in their private box, Sofya turned her head towards him and smiled. “Not bad. But jazz is still better.” 

“I told you,” Illya said, to Napoleon’s right, and between Illya and Sofya, Anna sighed. 

Both women were modestly if elegantly dressed for the evening, although Sofya was sporting a string of old pearls at her throat and new shoes. Napoleon, however, had been trying not to stare at Illya all night: he was lovely in a svelte black single-breasted jacket, with a streamlined shawl collar and a soft pleated white shirt beneath it. The black bowtie that he wore _did_ go with this ensemble, but it was the damned _gloves_ that were driving Napoleon to distraction. Made of soft dove gray chamois, they weren’t strictly fashionable, nor did they really match what Illya was wearing, but each time Napoleon could hear the leather creak gently when Illya moved his hands, blood seemed to jump southwards from his brain. Lord only knew how Napoleon was meant to survive Act II. 

“The evening has been very lovely so far, Napoleon,” Anna assured Napoleon firmly. 

“Why did they call it ‘Fiddler on the Roof’?” Sofya asked, sounding puzzled. “What is wrong with original title? ‘Tevye and his Daughters’ is still more accurate.” Anna had been murmuring to Sofya during the play, likely describing the sets and characters.

“Not so much of this is taking place on roof,” Illya agreed. 

“That’s it. I give up on the both of you,” Napoleon said, with a deep sigh. “Next time I’ll just take Anna to the theatre. We’ll leave you two at a jazz club.”

Anna laughed. “I’m going to stretch my legs. Sofya?”

“I’m fine here, thank you.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Illya offered, ever the gentleman around the two women, and offered her his arm. As they left, Napoleon glanced at Sofya. He had no idea what Illya had told Sofya about him, but although she was still reserved in his presence, she was thawing slowly. 

“There is a nice club in Greenwich Village,” Sofya said in Russian, turning her face back in the direction of the stage. “Anna and I will take the both of you. Next time. It will be our treat.”

“Sounds fun.” 

“How was Geneva?” 

Napoleon grinned to himself. “Very nice. Though I think Illya expected to be bored.” 

Sofya nodded. “You should have gone to Paris,” she told Napoleon, and smiled faintly, knowingly. 

“Are we that obvious?” Napoleon asked, amused. 

“I’m blind, not oblivious.” Sofya replied mildly. “You should be careful. One of my nephews fell for a MI6 agent. He was KGB. He was crazy, mad with love. I met him once when he was passing through New York, years ago. He told me about her.”

“This is a story that isn’t going to end well, is it?”

“She was asked to choose between her country and her lover and she chose her country,” Sofya said distantly. “My nephew survived, but he will never work as a field agent again. So it is.” 

“Don’t worry about me,” Napoleon assured her, grinning. “I’m not that patriotic.”

“Not you,” Sofya said abruptly. 

“Don’t worry about Illya either. Besides, we’ve already tried to kill each other at least twice. It didn’t take.” 

Sofya nodded slowly, and Napoleon couldn’t tell if she was convinced. They talked about the news and the war and the Kennedy assassination theories, all the way until Anna and Illya returned and took their seats. 

As the theatre darkened, the music swelling, heralding the start of the second act, Napoleon felt Illya’s gloved hand splay over his thigh, squeezing lightly. He patted the soft leather, and their fingers intertwined, for a precious moment of stolen intimacy, then Illya quietly drew his palm away. On stage, the velvet curtains were pulling away, lights blooming over the new set. Napoleon smiled to himself, and sat back to enjoy the music.

**Author's Note:**

> Things you watch for fics: 1960s laundry powder ad set in actual coin laundry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZKCkQf9njU 
> 
> Is there a difference between a Ukrainian accent and a Russian accent: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091117150942AAKoW9a / http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/russian-spoken-in-ukraine-vs-russian-spoken-in-russia.1170282/
> 
> Brighton Beach in the 1960s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLreABncUc Lol so much of this reminds me of GTAV  
> http://www.bklynlibrary.org/ourbrooklyn/brightonbeach/ Apparently Brighton Beach only really gets a lot of Soviet immigrants after the collapse of the Soviet Union (late 1980s). But I felt it was still kinda fitting for this fic. 
> 
> Laundromats used to be in every block in the city: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150315/RETAIL_APPAREL/150319908/once-a-fixture-laundromats-disappear
> 
> Describing 1960s formal fashion: http://www.mytuxedocatalog.com/blog/the-mad-men-tuxedo-darn-right-your-dad-wore-it/
> 
> Jazz history in the 1960s: http://www.jazzstandards.com/history/history-6.htm / Jazz history in Ukraine: http://www.kyivpost.com/guide/about-kyiv/the-fall-and-rise-of-jazz-in-ukraine-87926.html


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